a dusty bloom

i’ve always been attracted to bloom–the delicate powdery surface deposit on certain fresh fruits, leaves, or stems. bloom consists of minute scales of wax in the epidermal cells. the wax coating helps preserve the fruit, or stem, and reduce evaporation. i love it for the soft dusty color palette it creates.  i was trimming back some raspberry canes today and saw this collection of colors. one, two, and three year old canes, i suspect. an unusual, and pretty, palette.

raspberry canes

time of ripening

i grabbed these branch tips along one 3 meter stretch of my walk yesterday. it seems everything is trying to fruit right now. and the bright colors are a welcome contrast to all my dense trailside green. these are the early signs of autumn. the leaves have not started to turn yet, but fall colors are already here.

highbush cranberry, pagoda dogwood (?), buckthorn, and rose hips

lots going on under the covers

i often publish jack-in-the-pulpit in spring when it is blooming because jack (the spandix) and his pulpit (the spathe) are so exotic and eye catching. in all these years, however, i don’t think i have ever published the the seed berries. in part because they are quite hidden under the canopy of the trifoliate leaves. i love the bulging awkwardness of these seeds, and the tissue-papery sheath barely hanging on. one day later and that sheath would likely have burst. there is power in dailiness.

jack in the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)

young and old

it’s not very often i still get to see new-growth-green in august.  mostly what i am noticing on my walks these days are all the signs that the Greening is behind us, and the plants have switched their priorities from making chlorophyll, to putting their energy into fruits and seeds. in other words, we are entering the season of Ripening.

wood sorrel is a huge family of over 550 species, including native and cultivated species. my wood sorrel is an undistinguished weed that grows along the edges of my driveway from early spring into late autumn. it’s often called false shamrock. the entire plant is edible.

wood-sorrel (oxalis)

designing on demand

Today I had a film crew stop by to get footage for a local television show. The feature won’t air until next year this time (for you local Twin Citians, it was for Ron Schara’s Minnesota Bound on Kare 11.)  It’s the third time I’ve been filmed for STILL, and each time I have been asked to make a STILL composition on the spot for the camera. Yeah . . . gulp. It’s hard to design on demand, while also talking informatively to the interviewer. The previous two times this has happened, I have not been entirely happy with what I created under such a microscope. If I had not been on film, I would have tinkered longer until I got something I liked. But this time it was different, I got it “right” on the first take. So, here is my impromptu composition of deconstructed tiger lilies. It wasn’t premeditated. It just spilled out of me on the spot. Maybe practice makes perfect. Or maybe I just got lucky. Or maybe I prepared to get lucky. Or maybe I’m getting better at this. Who knows? The beauty of STILL, as I’ve said many times, is that tomorrow  another image needs to get made.

deconstructed tiger lilies (Lilium lancifolium)